Based on the Emmy Award­-winning “genius” (The Guardian) web series, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, this is a new novel starring Lizzie’s spunky sister Lydia as she navigates the joys and pitfalls of becoming an adult in the digital age.

Before her older sister, Lizzie, started her wildly popular vlog, Lydia was just a normal twenty-year-old plotting the many ways she could get away with skipping her community college classes and finding the perfect fake ID. She may not have had much direction, but she loved her family and had plenty of fun. Then Lizzie’s vlog turned the Bennet sisters into Internet sensations, and Lydia basked in the attention as people watched, debated, tweeted, tumblr’d, and blogged about her life. But not all attention is good…

After her ex-boyfriend, George Wickham took advantage of Lydia’s newfound web-fame, betrayed her trust, and destroyed her online reputation, she’s no longer a naïve, carefree girl. Now, Lydia must work to win back her family’s trust and respect and find her place in a far more judgmental world.

Told in Lydia’s distinctive, eccentric, and endearing voice, The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet picks up right where The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet left off and “offers a fresh take on Pride and Prejudice without ruining it” (The Washington Post, on The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet). Featuring fresh twists, wonderful new characters, and scores of hilarious texts, doodles, and tweets, The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet takes you behind the webcam and into the lives of your favorite sisters in a way that’s sure to satisfy existing fans and delight new ones.

First off, let’s make sure you know everything you need to know. If you don’t already know, there’s a phenomenal Youtube series called The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. It’s essentially a modern-day retelling of Pride and Prejudice, told through a web-series…which is pretty awesome if you ask me. Anyway, I discovered this series like a year and half ago or so during my finals week. Which gave me great reason to procrastinate because I just wanted to watch all of the episodes. I rave about the web-series here.

And theeeeen, they wrote a book based on the web-series. Which is also awesome. It’s essentially Lizzie’s diary while they’re filming the web-series…so you get all the background info, her thoughts, what happens when the camera isn’t turned on. It’s pretty sweet. My full review of that is heeeere.

AND NOWWWW (*drumroll, please*) they have The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet, which chronicles what happens to Lydia after the web-series. Because her life wasn’t easy and now she has to pick herself back up and grow from her experiences with the disgusting George Wickham (*gags*).

But it’s amazing and I loved it. I love that she’s such an important character that does have such potential for growth and development. In the original book, Lydia isn’t as important. And she doesn’t grow much, to be honest. But here we can see the strides Lydia takes on her own, and it was honestly inspiring.

One thing I love about Lydia is just her individuality. She has her own unique, bubbly voice that is just fun to read. She’s really so easy to love because of her voice and her personality. And here we get to hear her thoughts, which gives us even more empathy and love towards her as a character and person. Though she experienced hard things, she retains that bubbly and happy persona…even if sometimes it’s used to mask her other feelings.

I do wish that we had perhaps seen some more of Lizzie and Darcy. I know, I know…this isn’t their story. Their story is already plastered everywhere…but we just get glimpses of Lizzie and Darcy doesn’t ever appear (*sad sigh*). But we do get insight into what’s going on with their lives, what’s happening with Bing and Jane, and even Mary has some exciting things happen to her, as well.

Also, some things in this book are pretty predictable. As soon as there’s a mention of something in the beginning, I could clearly see how it was going to pan out…and they panned out that way. And normally predictability in books is one of my pet peeves, but I didn’t really mind it in this book. I just thought it worked well despite it.

SO. If you’ve seen The Lizzie Bennet Diaries web-series, read this book (you don’t need to have Lizzie’s book to read this one). If you haven’t seen the series, then probably watch that first. I think there’s references that you wouldn’t understand if you read this without the series. BUT GOOOOO DO IT.

Also, now I have an itch to re-watch the series. And read Pride and Prejudice for the 50 billionth time.

Ok, this is what I love about you, Carlisa. I literally have no idea what the YouTube series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is, but I still read this entire review. LOL I just love the way you write reviews. They are so quirky, and I feel like you are having a conversation with me. 😀